hortus conclusus

A well thought-out perfume could be the best Mothers Day gift choice ever if you follow a few simple guidelines. Your mom will be flattered and happy that you took the time to seek out a custom scent you know she will love,  and it is one of those gifts that keep gibing; every time your mom spritzes on that fragrance she is sure to think of you lovingly. Before you go shopping, take a few minutes to think about the following items, and you are sure to choose a perfume that pleases mom! determine whether your mom is a romantic or a classic or a minimalist, a sensualist or a prude, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. For example,  a sensualist may be more drawn to musky fragrances, but if your mom was too shy to give you the ‘birds and bees talk’ and never divulged her secret hopes and desires in your memory, you might consider sticking with florals has she ever mentioned a smell she particularly loves? You can search Basenotes datab

Today is my birthday, April 18th, and I have always found it significant that it also happens to be the day that the pilgrims in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales set out on their pilgrimage, “the holy Blissful martir for to seke/ that hem hath holpen whan that they were seke.” As a medievalist, I love it that I share my special day (well, at least the day of my birth) with one of the greatest compositions in the English language, as well as the fact that the tales open with an invocation of springtime and rebirth, an idea that I am always in love with this time of year: "Whan that Aprille with his shoores soote/ the dorughte of March hath perced to the roote/ and bathed every veyne in swich licour, / of which vertu engendred is the flour...and smalle foweles maken melodye / that slepen all the nyght with open eye/ So priketh hem Nature in hir corages, / Than longen foolk to goon on pilgrimages /And palmeres for to seken straunge strandes / to ferne halwes, kouthe in sondry londes.&